


No Litter Box Required

by rivaidere



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - College/University, Fluff and Humor, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Happy Ending, M/M, More characters to be added later, Supernatural Elements, Sweats nervously, also rating may change, cat!levi, cliche as hell im sorry, leaning very close to a crackfic, levi is a cat, neko Levi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-17
Updated: 2015-06-28
Packaged: 2018-02-13 12:43:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2151174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rivaidere/pseuds/rivaidere
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's a strange type of serendipity, Eren thinks, that the same black cat he rescued from a library drop-box would turn out to be the asshole he ran into at the coffee shop, who in turn would end up as his <em>lover</em>, of all people.</p><p>Modern college AU featuring Neko! Levi.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. drop-box

**Author's Note:**

> inspired by [dewey the library cat](http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3257136-dewey) as well as a [this](http://myreadingmanga.info/21gkawauso-kaineko-hajimemashita-attack-titan-dj-eng/) ridiculously cute cat!levi doujin.  
> disclaimer: i do not own shingeki no kyojin or any of its characters. the shingeki no kyojin franchise belongs to hajime isayama. i also have close to zero knowledge on cat behaviour so sorry in advance for any inaccuracies in ~~levi's~~ the cat's behaviour.  
>  a quick thanks to [ereriful](http://karebear.co.vu) for looking this over <3
> 
> also posted on [tumblr](http://rivaidere.tumblr.com/tagged/fic:%20no-litter-box-required/chrono)

The library is a desolate and rather lonely place after closing hours, with no one yelling at children to shut up and only making more noise in the process or nosing (in)discreetly through the erotica aisle or hiding in a corner with a laptop all day mooching off the free Wi-Fi. Eren finds it a strangely hollow feeling. He’s just about finished with locking up for the night when he hears the tiniest of noises sound from somewhere behind him—

_Meww._

There isn’t anyone else in the library aside from himself and the security guy, he assures his inner conscience.

_Mew. Mewww._

He spins around with the library keys chiming together on the loop in his hand, standing in an awkwardly improvised fighting stance in the middle of the darkened lobby. Thank god Jean isn’t here, because even tipsy horses have footing more stable.

 _Stay calm,_ he tells himself, _it’s just the wind._

Relaxing a bit and realizing that he forgot his coat in the office (it’s too late to retrieve it now); Eren sighs and wraps his scarf extra snug on his neck to make up for its absence. Tucking the keys into the back pocket of his jeans, he takes a deep breath and prepares to bolt out the automatic doors and straight to his car. It’s bitter as hell outside and Eren has zero intention of spending more time there than absolutely necessary.  

He’s taken two long strides outside when he hears it again, this time much more distinct.

_Mewww._

Eren comes to a halting stop mid-step. A choice he immediately regrets, because he winds up falling on his ass on the icy cement. Icy, snow-covered, _hard_ , cement. Fuck, his tailbone’s probably busted.

On the bright side, he can now pinpoint where the sound is coming from.

_Mewww._

Eren narrows his eyes. _Bingo._

Carefully straightening and brushing himself off, he edges towards the drop-off box that patrons used to return books after library hours. Cautiously reaching a hand out to open the slot, Eren braces for impact. There’d better not be a bomb in there. Or a firecracker.  Or living dog shit. And _hell_ , it’d better not be—

A kitten.

A _kitten._

Or a tiny-ass full-grown cat.

Whatever it is, Eren’s mind goes blank.

“Fucking _adorable,_ ” he breathes, staring at the little bundle of black fur in awe. It stops mewling to stare at him with piercing blue eyes and long white whiskers twitching, completely undeterred by the unfamiliar human that is Eren Jaeger. Said human doesn’t even notice how his nose is starting to run or that his ass is beginning to really throb and doesn’t even think to question how a cat even ended up crammed in a library book drop-box. All he wants in the world is to pet this miniature huddle of tiny kitty charm and obliterate all memories of masculinity he has ever possessed. There’s only so much Eren’s young, fragile, 19-year-old heart can bear.

He holds out a tentative hand, remembering from somewhere that you’re supposed to let cats sniff you before any further action.

“H-hey…I’m Eren.”

The stray doesn’t move, staring back at him from within the drop-box with the most unamused expression Eren has ever seen. He shifts his weight to the other foot with one arm still outstretched, feeling (and probably looking) like an idiot.

Apparently the cat thinks so too, because it gazes at Eren’s finger with a look at pure incredulity kind of like _“Do you think I’m fucking stupid?”_

Eren huffs. “You don’t have to be so damn difficult,” he withdraws his arm and studies the small animal. “It’s cold. You must be freezing.”

What kind of cruel person stuffs their cat into a chilled metal drop-box on a subzero winter night a leaves it alone to die?

He takes the scarf from his neck and shows it to the cat. “I’m going to wrap this around you, okay?” When it narrows its eyes at him, he adds. “So you won’t be cold anymore. It’s fuck—uh, freaking—freezing out here.”

Wait. Cats don’t know what swearing is. Eren resists the urge to throw up his hands in surrender for fear of frightening it, although at this point _he_ was possibly more intimidated by the cat than the cat would ever be of him. It was kind of sad.

“Alright, uh, Cat—” he begins, and he swears he sees it _gape_ at him. “Okay, okay, sorry. But I don’t have anything else to call you.”

‘Cat’ cocks his head and paws at his neck. A collar. _Of course,_ Eren thinks, angry at himself.

Ignoring the fact that a cat had somehow understood English, he squints at the tiny metal plate and reads, “…Heichou?

The cat meows. He takes it as a yes.

Wrestling Heichou out of the drop-box and into his car is a long, grueling battle with plenty of hissing from both parties. He knows that picking up an unfamiliar animal is a bad idea, but 1) Eren doesn’t have much other choice, 2) this cat’s got more spunk than he’s ever possessed in his life, and 3) his ass doesn’t hurt anymore but that’s only because it’s going numb from cold, plus he forgot his coat so all he’s wearing is a hoodie and jeans.

He ends up wrapping the black bundle of fur in his scarf and plopping it in the passenger seat with the seatbelt on just in case.

“So, uh, Heichou,” Eren begins, starting the ignition and pulling out of the parking lot, “How’d you end up in that return box anyway?”

The cat doesn’t respond. Eren feels it staring at him and struggles to keep his eyes on the road.

“Um…” Well, what was he supposed to say? “Are you a guy or girl?”

Damn. That came out wrong. “You’re…female?”

The cat growls a small, cute but mildly frightening growl.

Okay, so according to the cat, he was male.

There’s awkward silence for the remainder of the drive.

The trip from Eren’s car to his apartment is another agonizing battle. Heichou doesn’t seem to like being picked up, and turns out he’s pretty feisty cat. Feisty as in tiny, angry and murderous.

Eren manages to barely make it through the front door before Heichou uses his arms as a launch pad and lands primly on the nearby loveseat. Eren shakes himself all over and tries to regain a sense of feeling in his arms, legs, face, and butt. Hadn’t he decided _not_ to stay outside for longer than necessary?

He notices Heichou settling on his haunches and observing his shake-out session intently. It’s more than slightly unnerving.

He decides to ignore the cat’s piercing gaze and busies himself with finding a bowl and some leftover cat food (thank god Mikasa had had him do some cat-sitting a while back).

“Here,” he sets the dish on the ground, along with a cup of water, “Eat if you’re hungry.”

Eren leaves Heichou with the food and goes to get him a towel. When he gets back, the cat is glaring at the food dish like it personally offends him.

“What is it now?” It’s cold. It’s late. He just wants to sleep.

Heichou hops off the couch and makes an exaggerated show of pushing the dish away from him with one paw. Eren sighs and puts the towel down next to the cat (his original intention had been to wrap it around him, but since Heichou's choosing to be a lil' bitch Eren decided to let him suffer.) 

“You…don’t like cat food?”

The cat sticks out his tongue.

“Alright, alright. But I’m not making you anything else. Starve if you want.” Eren yawns, turning around to go back to his bedroom. “I’m going to bed. You can sleep on the couch or whatever.”

The cat rolls his eyes—wait, what?—and bounds back onto the loveseat, curling into a ridiculously cute ball of black fluff. Eren resists the urge to ‘aww’ because that wouldn’t be manly.

-x-

Later that night, when he’s sure Eren must be asleep (feline senses come in handy at times like these) Levi sneaks into the bathroom to do his business.

Cats need litter boxes, and that idiot had completely forgotten. If Levi were a real cat, he’d have pissed on the carpet by now.

It’s thanks to Eren that he isn’t freezing his balls off in that library return slot, though. He gives him credit for being stupid enough to approach a stray—and being even stupider by bringing it home with him.

 _I’ll stay here until I get to pay him back_ , he decides.

Even if this brat’s place is fucking disgusting. Having an exceptional sense of smell doesn’t help.


	2. the fateful coffee incident

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> coffee, cats, and cravats

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so much for your patience and the wonderful feedback on the first chapter! i'm really, really sorry about the long wait -sobs-

Over the next week, Eren learns more about Heichou than he probably has about anything else in life. The cat is so goddamn picky that he winds up making a list of Heichou’s every goddamn preference, which also becomes the longest piece of writing Eren has produced since last Saturday.

One: Never feed him cat food. Heichou only accepts bacon, ham, tea, and water, which Eren doesn’t think is particularly healthy but has no other choice lest Heichou starve to death.

Two: Never allow dust to gather on any piece of furniture in Heichou’s sight, because then he’ll try to lick it off.

Three: Never mention the vet around him.  And don’t even think about _taking_ him to the vet.

Four: Never try to touch his tail. Not like it’s possible considering the speed at which he whips it away, but you’ll earn yourself a scratch nonetheless.

Five: Heichou sleeps on peoples’ faces when he’s pissed at them. Eren finds this out the hard way.

Six: He absolutely loathes collars. Eren discovers that Heichou hadn’t been pawing at his collar because he wanted Eren to notice his name; it was because he wanted Eren to take it off.  

Seven: Heichou may hate collars, but he wholeheartedly _adores_ toilet paper. Starting from day three, Eren would never see Heichou without a mini cravat thing made of toilet paper wrapped around his neck for some inexplicable reason.

Eight: Heichou disappears for a few hours daily, sometimes during the day, sometimes at night. The first time it happened, Eren nearly panicked until Heichou reappeared a couple hours later.

Eren has also chosen to casually overlook Heichou’s ability to somehow comprehend English. It’s not _that_ strange.  There’re tons of animals can communicate with their owners, the Internet is full of them.

***

It’s one of _those_ days. Days when Eren is 30 percent more uncoordinated than his usual 70 percent, collectively adding up to 100 percent klutz. Heichou is nowhere to be found when he wakes up, but that isn’t his first concern because the peculiar cat always manages to return home some time or another.

Eren makes it halfway through the day without trouble and uses lunch break as a chance celebrate this minor victory. There’s a cozy little coffee shop just down the street from campus, and Eren sprints there with ten minutes to spare from his next lecture.  

He’s in somewhat of a rush, because Music History is taught by the notoriously harsh Professor Shadis (who is rumoured to have nearly given Connie a concussion for being tardy) and the line for coffee is tediously long. Ordering and paying at the fastest attainable speed, Eren spins on his heel and goes to escape the shop with eyes trained on the door.

He doesn’t see the short man in his way, and whilst holding an uncovered cup of coffee, collides squarely into the stranger’s chest.

“……”

“I-I…”

There’s spilled coffee dripping from the man’s cap and jacket, some of it streaking his face and running into his eyebrows. Eren gulps and takes a shaky step back with the half-empty paper cup in his hand.

If looks could kill, Eren wouldn’t have enough time to die before disintegrating into atomic particles.  

_He’s dead. He is so dead._

At a loss for words, Eren’s mouth rattles off on its own. “I-I’m really really sorry class starts in five minutes Shadis is gonna kill me if I’m late and the line was really long I didn’t look where I was going and I-I didn’t see you there…sh-shit I’m really sorry—”

“Kid,” the short guy interrupts curtly, “I don’t _care._ ”

“…huh?”

The man glares. Eren swallows nervously and fidgets.

“But you’ll pay,” steely blue eyes burn into green ones, “for calling me short.”

 _Those eyes look familiar. Er_ en just can’t recall when he’s seen them before.

Eren also doesn’t remember saying anything about this man’s height, but it’s definitely uncalled for when the shorty grabs Eren’s scarf and _uses it to soak up the spilled coffee._

“The hell are you _doing_? That’s my _scarf!_ ” Customers nearby are starting to pay them curious glances.

“And this,” the man retorts, dabbing at the last remnants of coffee left on his cheeks, “is my _face._ ”

Eren is rendered speechless and remains that way even after the man has turned tail and exited the café, slamming the door behind him.  An employee scrambles over with a mop and bucket, apologizing profusely to everyone in sight. Eren can only replay the man’s almost _smug_ expression while drying his face.

What an _asshole_. Eren had said he was sorry, didn’t he?

The spell only breaks when Professor Shadis’s deafening roar pierces his ears seven minutes later.

“ _You. Are. LATE.”_

_***_

Eren brushes off his friends’ questions about the whole ordeal after class and heads straight for the parking lot and climbs into his car, praying that Heichou hadn’t trashed the place like he did the first day they had started living together.

It might’ve just been his brain malfunctioning from the pure volume of Keith Shadis’s voice during the lecture, but Eren realizes on the drive home that the man from the café hadn’t taken his hat off even with coffee seeping through his hair.  For someone who used a stranger’s scarf as a towel just for the sake of getting clean again, the pieces don’t quite fit together.

**~**

_Gross._

Levi has resolved to never drink coffee again. Not within the next twenty-four hours, at least, because there’s no way he’ll ever forget the vile sensation of the stuff dripping into his eyes and bleeding into his borrowed pair of boxer briefs. Moreover, because of his… er…’ _specialness’_ , he couldn’t have taken off his hat. Sticky caffeinated liquid solidifying in your hair feels about as pleasant as getting trapped in a freezing library drop-box with nothing but a cute kitty exterior to your advantage. The fact that Levi has experienced both of those situations says a lot about him.

He hadn’t expected to bump into Eren outside of the apartment. The main reason he’d wanted to avoid it was because of the clothes—cats don’t wear human clothes, after all, and Levi is left stark naked after every cat-to-human transformation. Finding clothes without anyone catching him is typically a trying task, but luckily now Levi has access to Eren’s apartment as well as the balconies of every other unfortunate soul who happens to live in the same complex—which is how Levi compiled his outfit for the day. The shirt belonged to Eren himself, hidden from view by the jacket stolen from Eren’s next door neighbor. The pants and boxer briefs belonged to Eren’s _other_ next door neighbor, who had conveniently hung the garments on a clothesline right where Levi could reach on his tip-toes.

Hats and baggy shirts are an important aspect of his life. Without them he’d be forever roaming the streets as a stray cat and eating revolting leftovers for breakfast every day, lacking a way to interact civilly with other humans. An oversized shirt allows him to keep his tail wrapped tightly around his torso without it leaving visible bulges. Wearing a hat indoors to conceal his ears results in expulsion from most indoor facilities, but Levi would rather not have someone call animal control on him. The only pros of possessing cat ears and tail are that he doesn’t have to wear a fake-ass costume for Halloween, which can’t nearly suffice for all the failed job interviews he’s been through and the overall miserable life he leads.

But just for now, he’s going to make the most of the situation. A comfy shelter, fairly responsible caretaker (though Eren _still_ hasn’t remembered a litter box, the little shit), legally edible food, clean water—everything Levi’s ever wanted. As long as Eren doesn’t find out about his, ah, _abnormality,_ he’ll be fine.

Levi makes a mental note to revisit that coffee shop the next day. Because he wants to try their coffee. Not because he might accidentally encounter Eren again. And definitely not because Levi wants to try to get to know him without having to pose as his pet cat.

For the love of his toilet paper cravat, _definitely_ not.


	3. ledger lines

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aberrant, short, and somewhat of a bitch he may be, but Levi has always considered shallow to be excluded from the list. He doesn't judge purely by first impressions or physical appearance.
> 
> That is, before he was crammed into a library drop-box and rescued by a glittering brat in shining armor, known to society as a college student named Eren Yeager.

Levi doesn't like to think himself as shallow. Perhaps it's because he himself is a shapeshifting cat-man, so he understands that there is more to people than what meets the eye. Aside from a pair of cat ears and a furry black tail, he didn't appear any different from most humans at first glance. He shares a sort of mutual understanding with those who have things to hide.  
  
Aberrant, short, and somewhat of a bitch he may be, but Levi has always considered shallow to be excluded from the list. He doesn't judge purely by first impressions or physical appearance.  
  
That is, before he was crammed into a library drop-box and rescued by a glittering brat in shining armor, known to society as a college student named Eren Yeager.  
  
Eren has beautiful eyes, all green and blue and somewhere in between, which Levi has had the privilege of studying extensively under the notion of a judgmental pet staring down its owner.  
  
Eren also has an adorable nose, which Levi often swats with the tip of his tail just for the heck of it.  
  
Pretty lips. Sharp jawline. Soft brown locks that stick up in the mornings.  
  
What more, Eren fucking Yeager is an adorable piece of shit that, despite his tendency to forget about cleaning the litter box that he had finally bought, gives the best cuddles the world could offer.  
  
At the moment, said piece of shit is telling his cat a bedtime story, and Levi questions himself. Since when had he started feeling comfortable enough with this stranger to the point where curling up on his stomach was no big deal? Levi doesn't like people. He doesn't like humans with their filthy clothes and dirty bodies.  
  
And he's definitely not a creep for staring at Eren's eyebrows as he speaks, watching them rise and furrow as he tells the cat that he believes is named Heichou about the day's happenings.  
  
"Y'know, Heichou...there was a weird-ass shorty at the coffee shop yesterday."  
  
Levi blinks. Eren keeps petting his back absentmindedly, occasionally giving him a rub behind the ears.  
  
"Bumped into him and spilled my drink. I tried explaining that it was an accident but he said he didn't care. And you know what he did? Grabbed my scarf and wipes his face on it!"  
  
Levi almost smirks, before remembering that he currently sports whiskers and is physically unable to do so.  
  
"I mean, sure, I got some coffee on him...but come on! I didn't mean to, honest. I was late to class because of that midget. Shadis probably destroyed half of my eardrums."  
  
Yeah, Levi wants to say, I was there, dumbass.  
  
-x-  
  
Eren squints inquisitively into the café windows, not quite believing his eyes. Is that who he thinks it is?  
  
Sure enough, there seated alone at booth in Maria's Coffee is Sir Short Snappy-pants, coffee spill victim and Eren's current worst fear.  
  
He's here? Again?  
  
Maybe he's new to the area and just so happened to visit the same coffee shop as Eren two days in a row. It could very possibly be a coincidence.  
  
Eren slips into the shop as inconspicuously as he can, though it probably did more harm than help with him slinking awkwardly between confused customers. He hopes the strange man won't notice him.  
  
The things I do for coffee, Eren muses, hurriedly ordering his drink and rushing out to the parking lot.  
  
He turns back to see a pair of gleaming blue eyes, partially hidden under a baseball cap, watching him through the café's tinted glass.  
  
-x-  
  
Levi doesn't know what lures his feet back to Maria's Coffee day after day. He's so punctual about it too, it's pathetic.  
  
"You know what I like about you, Heichou?" Eren asks one day, petting his ears. Levi meows nonchalantly and Eren continues, "It's 'cause you listen to me. Sometimes I rant and get mad and say dumb shit, and I know you're a cat, but it feels like you understand."  
  
Sometimes, Levi wonders. Who is this idiotic sweetheart they call Eren Yeager?  
  
-x-  
  
Eren tends to yell a lot.  
  
"Stupid-ass coffee! Damn hot!"  
  
He often talks angrily about things he hates for extensive periods of time.  
  
"Ledger lines. The reason they made multiple clefs, but there's nothing higher than treble and lower than bass. So hey, use exactly what you're avoiding, right? Add like four and you've got yourself a fine high G, good for mindfucking your future sightreader with zebra stripes on their score—yes, Heichou, I know I don't have a solution either, stop giving me that look, as a music major I'm allowed to complain, you floof—"

But in the end, no one hears the shit he says except for his cat. Heichou knows all of his secrets. He's become a sort of permanent fixture in Eren's apartment, and Eren occasionally forgets how he got there.  
  
_Aren't I supposed to look for his owner?_ He asks himself that evening, and then realizes he's about five weeks late in remembering that.  
  
"Oh well. You're mine now," he murmurs with a grin.  
  
_Shit, that came out wrong._

-x-

Visiting Maria’s Coffee has become somewhat of a routine to Levi. Three days later, he finds himself yet again at the corner booth, staring listlessly out the window in hopes of spotting a certain teal-eyed brunet. What he is doing with his life, he doesn’t know.

He wants to talk to Eren, the person who unknowingly told Levi how much he abhorred rusty binder clips and faded letters on keyboards, and secrets of all sorts. It doesn’t seem fair that Levi knows just about everything about Eren, and Eren doesn’t even know he’s actually housing a shapeshifting cleanfreak of a cat-man.

The plan is simple. Wait for Eren to arrive during his lunch break, walk up to him, say hello, introduce himself, and apologize for the coffee incident.

Levi doesn’t know what he’ll do after that, but with his experience in communicating with humans, it’ll be a miracle if he reaches step one, “say hello”. Another problem is Eren dashing in and out of the shop at the speed of light, not sparing the slightest moment for conversation.

Eren is turning his life upside down. Because of him, Levi hasn’t had to scavenge for food in weeks, or seek shelter from blizzards under trashcan lids, or escape the wrath of nocturnal predators at night. He can’t imagine going back to his previous lifestyle.

 _Today will be the day we talk._ Levi is determined.

Moments later, Eren comes through the glass doors of the café, chatting away on his cell phone. He’s distracted and appears unaware of his surroundings. Perfect.

Expression settling into the stoic countenance he is absolute master of, Levi marches resolutely towards the oblivious brunet standing in the queue.

_When was the last time I willingly initiated conversation with a human? I don’t even remember._

_Fuck it. I’m doing this._

 

 

 

 

 


	4. second chances

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Levi the introverted shapeshifter cat attempts human interaction, take two.

"Hello," Levi mutters, eyes affixed in a gaze he hopes is not overly threatening,"I'm Levi."  
He could be introducing himself to anyone in the ordering queue, and Eren looks confused for a moment before realizing it's him that Levi's addressing.

"Oh, uh...Hi? I'm Eren?"

Levi bites back an unnecessary comment ("You sound like you don't know your own name") and instead continues with the polite responses he'd scripted for himself.

"Can I talk to you, please?" Levi internally cringes at the pleasantries that roll uncomfortably off his tongue, and grits out for an added measure, "If it's all right." 

The other customers in the queue have since lost interest and are back to drumming their fingers on their thighs in wait for coffee. 

"Um, sure?" Eren steps out of the line and side-eyes Levi as he leads them around the coffee shop. Levi tries to ignore the figurative hole he's boring into his nape, lest he snap back and scare Eren away for good.

They end up sitting in a corner booth, fidgeting awkwardly as they sit across from each other in silence. Levi doesn't know what to say, especially when Eren is glaring at him like he's a creep. 

"What do you want?" 

Eren definitely does not look cute in plaid and thick-framed glasses. His brunet hair is tousled slightly and parted carelessly in the middle. He has his messenger bag slung over his left shoulder, probably stuffed with textbooks and a laptop for class. His eyes, whatever colour they were, are glinting with suspicion and guarded curiosity. 

Levi is not staring. 

"Do you like cats?" flies out of his mouth before he can think straight.  
Shit. 

Lack of human interaction has really done him in this time, because normal people did not have thought processes along the lines of: Eren -> I am Levi -> Levi is Heichou -> Heichou is cat -> Eren and Heichou -> Eren and cats?

Eren scrutinizes him like he's trying to decide whether Levi is serious or not. 

"I think so? I mean, I kinda have one myself."

"Oh, cool." Levi replies rather lamely, considering he'd been the one to ask.

"Is that what you wanted to know?" Eren twiddles his thumbs on the table. Levi has his own clasped in his lap, hidden from view.

"No," He blurts a little too quickly. He swallows and braces himself for what comes next. "No, I just wanted to...apologize."

The word rings foreign in his ears. _Apologize_. Levi almost shudders. 

He takes a deep breath and forces himself to say it.

"Sorry about your scarf." Levi grimaces. 

Why is propriety so difficult to feign?

Eren's eyes snap up in pleasant surprise, and while his expression remains skeptical, Levi thinks he detects something else. Is that embarrassment he sees? It couldn't be. The suspicion appears to be waning, though. A good sign.

"It's fine," Eren scratches the back of his neck, a small smile tugging at his lips, "That was ages ago, man! Don't worry about it."

"Still, it was shitty of me."

Eren gives him a lopsided grin. "I wasn't watching my step either, so it was really my fault. Sorry about spilling coffee all over you." He offers his right hand for Levi to grasp. "So we're good?"

Levi blanks out for a second, staring at the hand, because admittedly, he momentarily forgot that in situations like these, he was supposed to shake it. 

"Yeah," he manages to eke out, and accepts the handshake.

They bid awkward farewells, because to Eren, Levi is just a socially incompetent stranger with whom he exchanged a few stilted lines of conversation, but to Levi, Eren is nothing if familiar.

 _What am I trying to accomplish here?_ Is a question Levi often ponders, and has yet to answer.

-x-

Throughout his development from shapeshifting cat-boy to cat-man, Levi has learned that he hates being indebted. 

He's spent the majority of his twenty-two (twenty-three?) years living the life of a stray cat, partially because passerby didn't judge a cat the same way they did a homeless person, mostly because cats required considerably less nutrition for survival than the average human. 

Even with the advantage of a smaller body to fuel, Levi found himself begging more than he'd like to admit. Each day was a battle, not only for necessities such as food and water, but also for territory and basic safety. He was no match for the coyotes that roamed rural areas, or the lost dogs desperate for meat, so thirty times too many Levi found himself being rescued by other kindhearted felines. Those debts were the worst, ones where he owed someone else, human or not, his life; he would never be able to repay them.

Although he must say in lament, the minimal amounts of food he'd consumed over the years had unfortunately affected his growth as a human, and now Levi has plateaued at an admirable five-foot three. 

But how to recompense for the obvious debt he owes Eren, for both saving his life and taking care of him? Perhaps as a cat, but care nonetheless. 

If Eren were a cat, he'd probably scavenge for a pack of sardines or offer a grooming service, though the latter was sometimes rejected even by fellow cats, so he wasn't so certain of either option. 

Alas, Eren was very much human, so he would clearly prefer human things, and Levi is strapped for ideas. 

He knows Eren enjoys music. He knows Eren is majoring in piano pedagogy (or was it business?), complains about theory and music history class (or was it finance and economics?), and loves performance days (but loathed memorization and playing Bach preludes). He knows Eren is unsure of which path to take, _his dream or his parents' dream?_ , and knows he won't give up on something he's set his mind to. He knows Eren has an adopted sister named Mikasa and a best friend named Armin, a frienemy named Jean Kirschtein and a highschool ex whose name escapes him (Levi had learned then that Eren was not straight in the least). He knows Eren's guilty pleasure is watching a show called Advance of the Giants, about which he always rants of lameness and cliché plot-lines to a certain cat named Heichou, but rushes to keep updated on the weekly episodes anyways.  


He also knows Eren likes caramel macchiatos, and thus a plan is born.

**Author's Note:**

> this'll be a purely lighthearted fic with minimal angst and pain, so expect more cat!levi shenanigans :D  
> please let me know if there are any errors! feedback is appreciated :3
> 
> my tumblr is [rivaidere](http://rivaidere.tumblr.com)!


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